MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — Area Education Agencies (AEA) in Iowa are in the process of preparing for the next school year with reforms now signed into law.
Central Rivers AEA provides services to schools in north and central Iowa, stretching from Cedar Falls to Marshalltown. The agency told Local 5 its biggest challenge right now is getting people to apply to work at the AEA.
Under the law, school districts will control majority of the funds that are used on AEA services, something that has created uncertainty for the AEAs.
"It is very challenging to reinvent a 50-year system within a couple months and then turn around and even have less funding perhaps the following year," said Joel Pedersen, chief administrator with Central Rivers AEA.
Central Rivers says their biggest challenge it has seen from this law is people leaving due to uncertainty, which is creating a hole without new people applying for those open positions.
"I think its just been really tough to lead that and watch people just, you know, there's been tears, there's been stress, there's just been illness, all those things together," Pedersen said.
Central Rivers is not scaling back, they have adjusted administrative positions by sharing various cabinet positions with Keystone AEA and eliminating four regional positions. Their overall goal is to save money from an administrative standpoint and keep the services closest to the kids.
The biggest question and concern for the rural schools are how much the larger schools will put their funds into AEAs.
"If those schools opt out, there's no way it not to have an impact on the rural schools because some of those rural schools, we're talking about a very small amount of money that is part of their flow through," Pedersen said. "What we're able to give them in the old system was really access to everything, if we have less dollars, we'll be stretched."
Central Rivers says they are positioned for success in the first year, but the second year is where the law could see impacts on everyday Iowans.
"The timelines might get longer, for example, if we get called with a new student moving into a district that has needs, we would be there within 24 hours, depending on what we have and the resources, it might be 4 days before we get out there," Pedersen said.
The AEA agencies are remaining optimistic.
"At Central Rivers, we've heard nothing but really we want to work with you, we want to give you some time to figure this out and go forward," Pedersen said.